74° 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[Apktl i, 1885. 



I'm "Dauap" (Malay no doubt) is the nameused 

 in Java for an Erythrina which ia. iu that island, 

 the favourite shade tree. Similarly an Erythrina is 

 used as a shade tree for caeio in Trinidad and other 

 West India islands and in South America, where 

 the tree is called the "mother" (inadre) of the 

 cacao. Erythrina Ihdica is very common in Ceylon 

 and is now conspicuous in Colombo* and along the 

 line of railway, from its blaze of scarlet ^ blossoms. 

 It is called by some " the Indian coral-tree." Travel- 

 ling with Dr. Trimen a few days ago, we attracted 

 his° attent on to a bright group of trees on the 

 side of a hillock near Polgahawela, and he said : 

 " That must be indigenous." This tree is one of the 

 few in Ceylon (the " cotton " trees for instance, 

 which aie deciduous. A fresh Hush of leaves suc- 

 cee .s the scarlet blossoms. The crows are constantly 

 at woik amongst the red blossoms, but whether 

 they eat the petals, suck nectar [from the heart of 

 the flowers, or feed on insects which are attracted 

 by the blossoms, we cannot Bay with certaiuty, 

 although we think the birds eat the flowers. E. 

 ladica is a common hedge-plaut in Ceylon, grow- 

 ing readily from cuttings. The timber does 

 not seem to be of great value. Gamble in 

 his "Manual of the Timber Trees of India" enumer- 

 ates seven species of Indian Erythrinas, "soft-wooded, 

 handsome flowered, deciduous trees." He notices 

 E. ovalifolia as a tree of the coast forests of Burma and 

 the neighbouring region of Assam &c. E. lithosperma. 

 and E. holoserirea are alto nativos of Burma, while E. 

 resupinata, a herbaceous plant, grows amongst the grass 

 of the Himalayan terai. Gamble describes E. snberosa 

 as growiug up to 3,000 feet. The soft, light wood is 

 used for scabbards, sieve frames, and occasionally for 

 planking. E, Indica, (the most common iu Ceylon) is 

 "the In lian coral- tree," the dadap of the Malays 

 and the erabadu of the- Sinhalese. I's struc- 

 ture is much the same as that of E. snberosa, 

 but ihe yrung stems and brauchlets are armed with 

 prickles. It is cultivated throughout India aud Burma 

 and is wild in Oudh, Bengal, South India (OeylonV) 

 and Burma. The weight of a cubic foot of the 

 wcod is about IS inches. (1 amble gives a better 

 accouut of the timber than we anticipated, aud per- 

 haps it might be utilized for tea boxer. We quote 

 as follows: — "Wood rather durable; though it is so 

 light and open grained, it doe* not warp or split and 

 it varnishes well. It is used for light boxes, toys, 

 scabbards, trays, aud is often grown as a support for 

 and to give shade to the betel pepper wine." Theu 

 comes a notice of E. arborescens which grows up to 

 7,000 feet on the Himalayas, and there are avenues 

 of it at D.ujiling. The dadap, which is probably 

 E. Indica, or cl"tely allud to it, seems to have been 

 value 1 as a shade tree from its deciduous habit, Ihe 

 impression being that the leaves are shed when light 

 and air are mutt required by the coffee and cacao. 

 But when we were in Java in 1SS1 the favonriate 

 shade trees were Albizzia Jlotuccana (timber brittle 

 and of little value) aud the beautiful aud valuable 

 "toon" tree, the rid cedar of Iudia. This latter 

 mi, on to us the tree which ought to be grown on 

 ( st itea at high elevations : this and Grcritlca robusta. 

 From the translation of Mr. Soheffer's Keport on the 

 Buitenzorg Botanic Gardens, which we published in 

 the Observer iu 1SS0 and reprinted in our Handbook 

 for 1880-1, we quote as follows: — 



The demand for seed of Albizzia violucavna was very 

 great. Of this tree Mr. Scheffer says : — " The culture of 

 Albizzia mohiccana is very easy. It is sown in hothouses 

 or nurseries. The seeds are soaked in water before sow- 

 ing. It is well-known that most of the coffee planters in 

 Java employ fullgrown froest trees as shade for coffee. 



* There are line specimens in the grounds of " Temple 

 Trees." 



In some situations this proceeding appears to me unnecesary, 

 in others it is destructive; hut the plantations are situ- 

 ated in circumstances so varied as regard climate and dis- 

 tribution of rain in the different months that it would ho 

 very impudent to lay down a general rule. For shade 

 the dadap (Erythrina (spec, div.) is generally employed. 

 Although this tree is preferable to those which are used 

 iu Ceylon (where e. (/. the Artocarpus inteyrifolia is much 

 employed) it has many drawbacks. Iu the first placo the 

 dadap, which is always propagated by cuttings, soon 

 rots at the the lower extremity of the trunk ; then it 

 suffers much from the larva: of a carembyx. which eat 

 the pith and cause the death of the tree ; besides, the 

 leaves are largish and end in elongated points which form as 

 it were watercourses, by which the rain always falls in the 

 same spot on the coffee trees ; finally, the dadap has 

 too bushy a foliage aud does not attain to any consider- 

 able height. The Albizzia on the other hand grows more 

 quickly ; it gives a shade which is placed at a considerable 

 height above the coffee trees, which allows a free current 

 of air ; its foliage is not too thick, and the leaves are 

 divided into numerous folioles of small dimension. Further, 

 the folioles, as is always the case with mimosas, are pendant 

 and turned downwards during the night, so that the dew 

 and the moon's rays can penetrate to the plantation. 

 For reforesting, if only an amelioration of climate is in view, 

 or firewood is required, I know of no tree better than 

 the Albizzia. Mr. Dennison plauted it in order to obtain 

 firewood for his limekilns, and he writes to me that he has 

 no culture more profitable. Trees of three years old were 

 large enough to furnish planks of sufficient dimensions 

 for a box containing 70 kilos of tea." The director re- 

 ceived very varying reports as to the benefit of this tree, 

 some sayiug that it gave very little humus and no shade, 

 while others report the exact opposite. There is no question 

 however that the tree is very fragile, but Mr. Scneffer 

 states that this fault may be remedied by thoroughly pruning 

 the tree when young. A Mr. \Viusser reports that the 

 plant is sleuder,that the shade is too dense, that the branch- 

 es are too horizontal and too low, and that consequently 

 the tree hinders evaporation and thus gives rise to many 

 evils in the coffee. Mr. Scheffer answers these complaints 

 by saying that if it(the plant)is slender, the|other statements 

 cannot be true, and if the latter statements are true the 

 complainant has not followed the directions given as to prun- 

 ing. A Mr. de Haan cut dowu some trees for firewood, 

 and he obtained excellent charcoal for his tea-house. 

 It will be seen from the ahove that Mr. Schefl'cr's 

 opinion of the dadap as a shade tree is not very 

 favorable. 



Russian Duty on Tea. — Notwithstanding the pro- 

 test of Mr. Katkotf, the Russiau Government has 

 raised the duty on tea by 400 copeks per pood, which 

 is between 4i/ and bd per lb It is noteworthy that 

 this is levied solely on tea across the European 

 frontier, so that the increase operates as a differential 

 duty on tea coming overland via Russian Turkestan. 

 The net result, however, will be Hie same — namely, 

 that the moujik, who drinks more tea than any other 

 man iu Europe, will have to pay about fid a lb. more 

 for all the tea that he consumes, while the wealthy 

 classes who drink only the overland tea, will find the 

 prce of their favourite beverage remain unchanged. — 

 European Mail. 



^n Enemy of Tea.— A Dikoya planter writes: — 

 " I send a match-box containing tea leaves affected 

 by some insect which curls up the leaf and causes 

 it to die : the greeu leaves are in first stag^ and con- 

 tain small white caterpillars ; the dry ones are iu 

 later stage, when insect appears to have left. There 

 a is lot of it here, and iu nearly every c»se it attacks 

 the third leaf of the young shoot. I shall feel much 

 obliged if you can tell me what it is, and whether 

 likely to prove a lasting pest ; also, if the big leaf 

 at bottom of bough shows any traces of red spider." 

 Our entomological referee writes : — " All I can say 

 about it is, that the mipchief is done by a leaf- 

 rolling caterpillar, which probably turns into a small 

 inconspicuous moth. I have examined the huge tea leaf, 

 and can find no traces of red spider upon it." 



